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Music & Musical Instruments

The Museum's music collections contain more than 5,000 instruments of American and European heritage. These include a quartet of 18th-century Stradivari stringed instruments, Tito Puente's autographed timbales, and the Yellow Cloud guitar that belonged to Prince, to name only a few. Several of these rare instruments can be heard in performances of the Smithsonian Chamber Players and in other public programs. Music collections also include jukeboxes and synthesizers, square-dancing outfits and sheet music, archival materials, oral histories, and recordings of performances at the Museum. The vast Sam DeVincent Collection of Illustrated Sheet Music is a remarkable window into the American past in words, music, and visual imagery. The Duke Ellington and Ruth Ellington Boatwright collections contain handwritten music compositions, sound recordings, business records, and other materials documenting the career of this renowned musician.

Benny Goodman (1909-1986,) the King of Swing, was one of the America’s most popular band leaders and the leader of one of the first racially integrated musical groups. Goodman was a clarinetist by training, and his big band performances in Chicago and New York throughout the 1930s helped make jazz a respectable musical form. He and his orchestra performed the first jazz concert in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1938. “And the Angels Sing,” recorded in 1939, was one of Goodman’s many hits. The musician would go on to play a variety of music, including bebop and classical.

Often considered the first great jazz saxophonist, Coleman Hawkins (1904-1969) is known as the Father of the Tenor Saxophone. Like Louis Armstrong, Hawkins pushed the boundaries of jazz music by improvising solos and altering songs’ basic melodies. His 1939 recording of the jazz standard “Body and Soul” became famous for its improvisation. He never played the same version twice. Though primarily a jazz and big band musician, Hawkins experimented in bebop in the 1940s.

“Moonlight Serenade” became bandleader Glenn Miller’s (1904-1944, MIA) signature song, despite its place on the b-side of his 1939 “Sunrise Serenade” release. In that year alone, Miller had five top-20 records on the Billboard charts, and “Sunrise Serenade” became his first record to sell more than one million copies. The swing music the Miller and his orchestra performed was infused with elements of jazz and featured a unique combination of sound from the clarinet and saxophone. The bandleader's pure, romantic swing sound appealed to dance audiences nationally and overseas.

Alan Turner, the lead singer in The Equadors, a Philadelphia rhythm and blues band, composed the song "Sputnik Dance," which the group recorded in early 1958. Track 2 on this side was the song "I'll Be the One." The other side had songs "A Vision" and "Stay a Little Longer." The Equadors later renamed the group The Modern Ink Spots, and sang for several years.